The State Police Canine Unit is a uniform support service which offers tactical support to the Department by utilizing an effective law enforcement tool. The goal of the K-9 Unit is to enhance the mission of the Department proactively and reactively in crime prevention, detection, criminal apprehension and officer safety.

Description of the basic K-9 instruction :

The dog is able to detect and go up a human odor in a building. The dog must locate hearths of odors. He raises the head, takes the odor and moves above. The dog goes as a scanner in an indicated sector (local, apartment, court, etc). When it will be vis-a-vis a human person, it will sit down close to this person and will be put in vigilance by barking it until the arrival of its Master. If the person tries an escape or starts to move, the dog, when it "is coded" on the search for a criminal, will bite to neutralize it.

We use mainly this method on burglary alarms.

The dog works similar as in a building suspects search.

On a simple order, the dog must follow a human trace from A to Z, in an intensive way, calm and concentrated while keeping the muzzle with ground. Without leaving the track, it must seek in all the corners and recesses, bring or indicate correctly the objects abandoned or lost in the course of road by the tracer.

We will put a dog on "tracks some" when a person whom one would like to find escaped by foot. We are often confronted with such situations at the time of burglings, escapes after accident, disappearances, etc.

The odor of a human trace is recognizable with to the four following compositions:

1) odor of the wound of the ground: It is the most significant component of the odor of the traces. One understands by wound of the ground the odor released by the bent or trampled plants, the odor of the insects and larvae crushed, the odor of the various bacteria raised in swirl, etc.

2) odor human being: Just like each species of animal, the human being has a specific odor. Thus, the attention of a well drawn up dog will not be diverted and it will not have any difficulty in follow a human trace, even if this one were crossed by game.

3) individual odor of each human being: Each human being releases a different odor. For this reason, our dog will easily recognize the odor of its Master and will be capable to distinguish it from the other odors.

4) other odors: For example, those of the soles, waxing, the product of proofing, residues of manure and other products encrusted in the profiles with the soles. In sense of smell, the dog ranks definitely above its Master and for this reason it is capable to recognize and distinguish these various odors. By way of comparison:

the human being has 5 million olfactive cells, against 250 million for the dog!

The dog will easily distinguish a fresh trace from old. Of instinct, as long as it will not have been directed towards a precise trace, it will always follow the freshest trace. Arrived at a right angle of the layout, it will move away to the maximum only of a few meters in the false direction; then it will realize and seek the good direction there by describing a circle. If such were not the case, all its ancestors would have most probably died of hunger...

The support of the dog during interpellations of dangerous and virulent suspects makes it possible to avoid having recourse to heavier and more dangerous means for the suspect as for the police officers.

Very often the presence of the dog makes it possible to defuse tended situations. At the time of brawls, for example, the participants calm themselves often instantaneously with the sight of the dog. The same applies at the time of patrols in districts at the risks or during identity checks. The dog will draw the attention of badly disposed people and will dissuade them to make offences.

The help of the police dog has to come in surface when his partner is in difficulty. This last can be taken with part by several individuals in a situation where the use of the weapon is disproportionate. It must also be able to intercept a fuyard implied in an offence.

Our dogs are involved to defend their partner. They must be able to remain serene in front of the provocations and to react only in the event of ultimate recourse. The dog must be able to distinguish the gestures from courtesy between its partner and a third person and the aggressions, even in a very tended situation. At the time of brawls, the dog held in longe is used to define a perimeter of safety between crowd and the police officers. Generally, the only presence of the dog is enough to calm down the minds...

When the author of an offence is located, that it escapes and that he does not obey the injunctions, the dog will have formally to identify it and intercept it by seizing it, generally in the legs. He will have to maintain a catch on his prey until the arrival of the master.

We must assist the criminal police or the patrols in search of indices and evidence on spot where offences were made.

The dog is able to detect an object which has an odor different that that from the ambient conditions. Obviously, this discipline is realizable only outside.

We will send a dog for a search for objects on, in particular, on the places of an offence or a crime (to seek elements and evidence lost or hidden), but also on the spot of an accident, to find ejected effects. It also happens that one calls upon us to try to find objects mislaid at the time of a ballade or a picnic... For the small history, one of our companions lately found, in field, a ring of a value of CHF 15' 000. - (!)

When the dog finds objects stray or abandoned, it has two ways of letting it know to his Master. Some, will lay down or sitted in front of the object, and others, proudly will take it in mouth and will bring it back to their Master. In our job, one will use the first technique which makes it possible to preserve the traces and prints which are on the object.